Sara Lyons O’Neill ’55,
until he contacted me on Facebook in 2009. We began a series of phone conversations, and then I talked him into attending our 55th Reunion at Gail’s — in spite of his fear that no one would care to talk to him after so long an absence. Our classmates, who had also lost track of George, were delighted to see him. He retained his lively wit and friendly repartee in spite of the physical effects of aging. In August of 2010, Paul and his wife Isa hosted a party commemorating that Paul, George and I had been the Three Kings in the 1954 Christmas Pageant — and Isa served king crab claws. We kings met again, with Isa and my wife Louise, at the Delaware Water Gap in September 2011. George was in his fourth marriage, but Paul and I never met his wife. After 2011, my contacts with George were by phone or his emails, either jokes about aging or inspirational messages. It is hard to write about a man whom I knew especially well in ninth and 10th grades, when we sat in desks next to each other, but didn’t see for so long after 1955. I think he started college at Texas A&M University, then transferred to Michigan State. He told me several times that he played varsity football, about which I am incredulous since Friends
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had no tackle football program (he was manager of the boy’s varsity basketball team, coached junior varsity, and was also in the current events club and the choral group). I think he first came to Friends in sixth grade, and he once described the buses, trolleys and ferries he rode each day to get to and from school. He couldn’t have had much time to hang around after 3 p.m., but I recall accompanying him to a bowling alley on 14th Street; he bowled and I kept score. He later introduced me to the roller derby. (Does anyone else remember Mr. Wilcox’s crush on a player named Mary Lou Palermo?) I also went to a Yankees game with George one summer night. He had a tendency to play class clown, but he was so bright and articulate. In our class song, to the tune of “Wonderful Town,” there is a line about “Steve and his stagecoach, George in the back row, his comments endure.” George was also quite the gentleman. He was very polite to Louise when he met her at the reunion and insisted on driving us back to our hotel. Writing about George’s death saddens me, but thinking about him has also revived some surprisingly positive memories about Friends. Paul Allersmeyer, Jackson Bryer, Anne Carriere and Arthur Goldschmidt contributed to the tribute above. Submitted by Gail Richards Tirana ’55: It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Sara Lyons O’Neill ’55, on April 28, 2015. She was 77 years old. She was the daughter of the late Jeremiah P. Lyons and late Isabel Delehanty Lyons. A lifelong resident of Manhattan and Spring Lake, New Jersey, she graduated from Hunter College Elementary School, Friends Seminary and Mount Holyoke College, Class of 1959. The beloved wife of Paul J. O’Neill, Jr., to whom she was married for 54 years, she was the mother of Christopher, Bradley and Hilary, and the grandmother of Brendan, Meghan, Katharine and Emily.
During her career, she served as the director of finance and business operations for several New York area independent schools, including Woodmere Academy, The Hewitt School and Packer Collegiate Institute. A woman of intelligence, grace and great integrity, she will be dearly missed by all who knew her. [The New York Times] Jackson: I remember Sara at Friends as a wonderful classmate — reserved but friendly and a wonderful writer. She went to Mount Holyoke College and I to neighboring Amherst College. When I got to Amherst in the fall of 1955, I literally knew no one at either school, except Sara, and for the first month of school Amherst was under quarantine because one of my classmates had contracted polio and we could not leave the campus. Needless to say, when the quarantine ended, my classmates and I were anxious to meet our counterparts at Mount Holyoke. I got in touch with Sara and, as a result, my social life was launched. Although we saw each other relatively infrequently during our college years, whenever we did we were extremely glad to see each other. The party she and Paul gave on the Friday night of our 50th Reunion weekend was a highlight of the event. Anne: Sara reminded me of a little bird, in her movements and her quickness. We met for lunch with Ellen a few times in the past, and her wit and her political perceptions were delightful. Peter: I remember Sara well and that she was a wonderful person. I cannot think of Cicero without thinking of Sara as she, I, and a third classmate, Susan Mok, took third year Latin together three times a week (“O Tempora, O Mores” is how Cicero’s attack on Cataline begins as I still recall), and also often prepared for class together for that whole year. And I would often meet Sara going to high school. Several Friends people took the Third Avenue El (which conveniently didn’t stop run-